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Clarke tallies 4 goals in Lady Bronco loss to Idaho Falls

BLACKFOOT — The Blackfoot Lady Broncos opened their 2012 soccer season on Friday afternoon as they welcomed 5A Idaho Falls to town for a non-conference showdown on the pitch.
At the end of the day junior forward Cassandra Clarke set a new school record by becoming the first female soccer player in program history to score 4 goals in a single contest. Unfortunately, the Tigers came out a little quicker on the offensive end as they built a comfortable lead and then hung on for an 8-4 victory over the Lady Broncos.

"Initially I think that we came out a little intimidated by Idaho Falls," Blackfoot head coach Scott Stufflebeam said. "Once we figured out that we could be just as physical with them I thought that we then stood toe-to-toe with them and I believe that Idaho Falls were a little taken aback from that."
Idaho Falls struck first to take a 1-0 goal in the first ten minutes of play but Clarke answered back with a nice blast into the corner of the net to tie the game at 1-1 15 minutes into the contest.
Idaho Falls then got physical as they took control of the game in the midfield, eventually putting away 6 goals over the next 40 minutes of play to take a 7-1 lead.
"We didn't do a very good job of marking up through that stretch of the game," Coach Stufflebeam said. "Honestly, if we had marked up like we know that we can we might have just won this game."
Blackfoot then started their comeback attempt as Clarke dribbled around, through and past the Idaho Falls defense for goals in the 70th and 74th minute and then she added her fourth goal of the game in the 78th minute when a frustrated Idaho Falls defense fouled her in the box, allowing for a penalty shot which she blasted past the diving Tiger goal keeper for the Broncos final tally of the evening.
"Cassandra just dribbled around people and made them look stupid," Coach Stufflebeam said. "She pulled a muscle and we were sitting her in the second half and I didn't even think that she was available to me at that point. Then she goes in and scores three second half goals."
Overall it was a good first outing. We have a stronger team than we have had in the past and like most early season games we were still missing some key players either to injury or lack of practices," Coach Stufflebeam continued. "We were about four players short today which meant that we couldn't get into our rotations the way that I would have liked and we were definitely not in shape yet but overall it wasn't a bad outing."
Blackfoot (0-1) will be back in action on Tuesday when they host Jerome at 4:30 P.M.